'Game of Thrones' Showrunners Had That Big Arya Stark Moment Planned for 3 Years [SPOILERS]

This story includes spoilers for 'Game of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 3, "The Long Night."

Game of Thrones fans now know what Arya Stark truly needed her epic assassin skills for: to kill the Night King. During the most daunting battle Thrones has ever seen, the Battle of Winterfell, Arya leaped out of nowhere and saved the day by killing the undead leader and his army with one stab. This was clearly Arya's destiny, but for how long was the big moment planned for the series' creators?

In a new Game of Thrones behind-the-scenes video, titled "Game Revealed," the cast and crew discussed the famous episode in detail and revealed that the decision to have Arya kill the Night King had been three years in the making.

"Just when you think that it's all over, and just when you think that Jon Snow is going to be the hero, again, we realize that Arya appears through the mist," Maisie Williams said with satisfaction in the video below.

"I was pissed," Kit Harington admitted, recalling when he found out he wouldn't be the hero this time. "I was pissed that it wasn't me killing the Night King. I would have given you, like, I would have bet you, like thousands, before we read the finals, I was like, 'yeah, it's definitely me.'"

Showrunner David Benioff explained that having Jon be the hero in this battle felt wrong. "Jon Snow has always been the hero, the one that's been the savior, but it just didn't seem right to us for this moment. It's probably been three years now or something that we've known that it was going to be Arya who delivers that fatal blow," Benioff explained.

According to the video, the scene broke all of Game of Thrones rules, filming in slow motion and showing a "heightened reality," which made the scene even more momentous. The music, along with the intercutting of scenes between the Night King meeting Bran and seeing all of our characters on the brink of death, made it so emotional.

"We knew it had to be Valyrian steel, to the exact same spot where the Child of the Forest put the dragonglass blade to create the Night King...And ultimately we've known for a long, long time that was going to end the Night King," Benioff added.

"Reading what I get to achieve and Arya's purpose in this world and everything she's trained for all comes down to this one episode," Williams continued. "It's just amazing. And it was beautiful, it's poetry, and I'm grateful that it was me and not Kit."

Of course it was a huge shock to fans that neither Jon nor Daenerys was the one to defeat the Night King, but isn't that what Game of Thrones is all about? We should always expect the unexpected.